{"id":34503,"date":"2025-10-08T00:51:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T00:51:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/my-teens-didnt-want-to-talk-to-me-so-i-changed-the-way-i-talk-to-them-and-it-worked\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T00:51:38","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T00:51:38","slug":"my-teens-didnt-want-to-talk-to-me-so-i-changed-the-way-i-talk-to-them-and-it-worked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/my-teens-didnt-want-to-talk-to-me-so-i-changed-the-way-i-talk-to-them-and-it-worked\/","title":{"rendered":"My teens didn&#8217;t want to talk to me. So I changed the way I talk to them &mdash; and it worked."},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/68e529af1c1f80efbec511fc?format=jpeg\" alt=\"The author poses with two of her teens.\"\/><figcaption>The author said her teens often gave her one-word answers when she questioned them about something. Changing her approached helped them open up.<\/p>\n<p>Courtesy of Rachel Garlinghouse<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>I was tired of getting one-word replies when I tried to talk to my teens. I wanted more.<\/li>\n<li>After doing some research, I started experimenting with the way I approach conversations with them.<\/li>\n<li>Using &#039;I&#039; statements has helped me connect with my teens and get more from our talks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Teenagers, including my own two (almost three), are known for their one-word replies to parent inquiries, whether it be in text or in person.<\/p>\n<p>My kids are no exception. They often shut themselves into their bedrooms or bury their heads in a screen when I want to talk to them. Unsurprisingly, communication isn&#039;t their strongest suit.<\/p>\n<p>Like many parents, I found myself frustrated. They were pulling away, while I was pushing in. Of course, I know a teen&#039;s job is to make strides toward being more independent. Yet, I also know that in this season of their lives, their brains are still developing, and they very much need parental awareness and guidance.<\/p>\n<p>By switching to &quot;I&quot; statements, I&#039;ve managed to drastically improve the communication between myself and my teen kids. After reading, &quot;How to Talk So Teens will Listen and Listen So Teens Will Talk,&quot; by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish. I began creating my own tailored strategies about how to better communicate with my tween and teens.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#039;s how I recently incorporated this strategy into a conversation with one of my children about their grades.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I noticed<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Whether I&#039;ve noticed something negative or positive, my kids tend to communicate more when I share a simple observation. Recently, I approached one of my teens and said, &quot;I&#039;ve noticed your grades have been dropping lately.&quot; <\/p>\n<p>By stating what I observed, while taking ownership of my own observation, I was able to confront them about something they could have very easily taken the wrong way. I was trying to cut down on any defensiveness. <\/p>\n<p>I quickly followed this up with another important &quot;I&quot; statement to get them talking.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I wonder<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Stating my observation opened the door to a conversation. Then I followed up with a hypothesis, &quot;I wonder if trying to balance sports practices and games with homework is challenging for you.&quot; <br \/>I know my teens are sometimes overwhelmed by options and struggle to pull a &quot;why&quot; out of thin air, so I like to help them along. <\/p>\n<h2><strong>I know<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Next, affirmation came in. I saw this as my chance to build them up and say something positive, so I told my child that I know they are good at track, and that running track is great for their brain and body. This way, I wasn&#039;t blaming the sport or my kid. <\/p>\n<p>Then I assured my teen by saying, &quot;I don&#039;t expect that you stop going to practices. I am wondering what we can do to balance your schedule more.&quot; I think the &quot;we&quot; has been an important part of this strategy for my family, so I&#039;m not putting all of the pressure to fix the issue on my child.<\/p>\n<p>Next, I stated the information I knew to be true \u2014 track is tough, there are 3-hour practices, four afternoons a week \u2014 then I slipped in something about how when practices started increasing, grades started dropping to help connect the dots for my teen.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I am willing<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Once I stated the issue, I shared how I&#039;m willing to help. In this case, I offered to assist with their laundry chore on nights that they have practice, while reminding them the chore is still their responsibility on other nights. <\/p>\n<p>I asked if this accommodation might help them focus more on homework in the time they do have, and they agreed.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>I feel<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I always try to share my feelings in a constructive way. Saying something like &quot;I am so angry your time-management issue is causing you to have a C-average,&quot; is something that would shut my teen down. Instead, sharing something along the lines of, &quot;I feel frustrated that there&#039;s a time management issue, because it&#039;s starting to impact the whole family,&quot; paints a bigger picture that reminds them that we are a team.<\/p>\n<h2>This is working for us<\/h2>\n<p>I&#039;ve found that conversations with my teens have greatly improved in the last several months since I&#039;ve started centering myself more, while sharing my observations and willingness to help. <\/p>\n<p>Instead of possibly &quot;flying off the handle,&quot; they now expect me to engage in a back-and-forth conversation where each of us holds some responsibility for the outcome.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The author said her teens often gave her one-word answers when she questioned them about something. Changing her approached helped them open up. Courtesy of Rachel Garlinghouse I was tired of getting one-word replies when I tried to talk to my teens. I wanted more. After doing some research, I started experimenting with the way [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}